EDITORIAL: Democrats responsible for health fiasco

Thursday

Oct 31, 2013 at 9:15 PMOct 31, 2013 at 9:15 PM

Perhaps the smartest thing congressional Republicans have done in some time was capitulate on the government shutdown and agree to raise the debt ceiling. Neither issue has appreciable lingering effects on the public.

Perhaps the smartest thing congressional Republicans have done in some time was capitulate on the government shutdown and agree to raise the debt ceiling. Neither issue has appreciable lingering effects on the public.Now, they are old news, and the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, has center stage. As much as some Democrats would like, there’s no way they’re pinning any of the blame for ACA’s horrendous rollout on Republicans.One of the biggest problems with the law is how it was enacted — it was a Democratic show from start to finish. Republicans have nothing invested in it.The problems with the healthcare.gov website are troublesome. It’s disconcerting to know that government can’t run a working website but wants to exercise control over the nation’s health care industry, which affects the nation’s health and well-being and represents about one-sixth of the country’s economy.Democrats have complained that the website failures are partly due to states where Republican governors declined to establish state health care exchanges. Why would Republican governors support what they think will be bad for their state and country?Obamacare supporters have complained that Republican resistance to a single-payer system has created a Frankenstein’s monster of a system that shambles haltingly along. But they neglect to mention that a single-payer system lacked support from enough Democrats, much less Republicans.The technical problems will be worked out sooner or later. The real problem, and one that has even been dawning on some of President Barack Obama’s supporters, is that the Affordable Care Act doesn’t make health insurance affordable for everyone.People who don’t qualify for the government subsidies that supposedly make insurance affordable for lower income people are paying more for individual plans in many instances. One Tuscaloosa resident noted that he now has maternity and pediatric coverage. He and his wife are empty-nesters in their 60s and don’t need the coverage, but their rates have more than doubled.The worst potential development would be the so-called “death spiral.” If too few young, healthy adults enroll in Obamacare to offset the cost of providing “affordable” health insurance to older, sicker enrollees, it could be catastrophic for the nation’s health care system.Obama made much during the presidential campaign about helping the middle class. And that is who will likely be harmed most by the misnamed Affordable Care Act. They will pay higher premiums and possibly lose coverage. They will be taxed on their employee health benefits.While the Democrats were distracting voters with talk of making the rich pay their “fair share,” they were reaching their hands into the pockets of the middle class. They can blame Republicans all they want, but they own this one.